Our friends over at CarRentals.com launched version 2 of their iPhone app last week. InfoPogo's iPhone Consultants built this great app for renting cars -- check it out.
CarRentals.com has some of the best rental rates you'll find -- and now it's easier than ever to rent from your phone. The new version remembers your last inputs saving you time, has a native booking screen, improves renting in Canada, and has better support for in-city locations.
Yesterday Steve Jobs, founder and CEO of Apple Computer, showed off the Zillow app InfoPogo helped create. We couldn't be more proud of our team of mobile developers and the fantastic crew at Zillow!
Here's the app up on the big screen, behind the man in black, at Apple's OS4 launch:
InfoPogo's software development team has once again teamed up with the folks over at Zillow.com to push the envelope in real estate. We worked with Zillow to produce what we believe is the most innovative real estate application ever on Apple's new iPad mobile computer.
The new iPad app is an incredibly intuitive, interactive, immersive, and fun way to shop for a home to purchase or rent. Check out the video over on Zillow's blog to see it in action (you really have to see someone interacting with the app to appreciate it).
You literally interact with the homes -- flicking your finger across the photos to see more; swiping the details page to see another home; pinching and swiping the map to find the neighborhood that's perfect for you, then tapping on a home to quickly see photos, details, and pricing information. It's so immersive -- it's like walking around the neighborhood, knocking on the front door and taking a tour of a home -- without leaving your living room.
You can also dive in to the gallery view for a photo driven shopping experience. It's a really great way to see which homes are perfect for you. Tapping on a photo shows a film strip and more details on the home. We think it's a killer way to shop for real estate -- 100 times better than sitting at your traditional desktop or laptop computer.
If you get your hands on an iPad -- download the free app and let us know what you think.
Does your company need an innovative iPad, iPhone or Android app? Drop us a line to find out how InfoPogo can help you mobile-enable your business.
InfoPogo is pleased to announce that we helped Zillow ship the latest version of the #1 iPhone App in Real Estate. Now you can see rentals, sync your favorites homes with your Zillow.com account, and share your favorite homes on Facebook and Twitter.
InfoPogo's applications have been downloaded from the iPhone app store over a million times! Our iPhone Development Consultants can help you mobile-enable your business, too. Drop us a note at sales@infopogo.com for more information.
As a developer of mobile applications, I get asked a lot what phone should folks buy? To me, there are currently five possible choices (in my order of recommendation):
Executive summary: I think iPhone has a very slight (and narrowing) lead on Nexus One. I give iPhone the edge mainly because of the selection of applications available for it. Nexus One is hot on Apple's heals, and I believe a year from now they might be my choice. As such, I recommend to folks building mobile applications that they build for both iPhone and Android today.
Apple iPhone I've been using an iPhone since they first came out. It has been my primary cell phone, and I absolutely love it. My current device is an iPhone 3GS. It is intuitive, fast, fun to use, and "there's an app for that" (about 130,000 apps today). Definitely the best mobile device I've ever used -- and a real game changer in the mobile computing world. To me, this is still the champ.
I do have four complaints with iPhone:
Motorola Droid
When Motorola shipped the Droid, I thought it might win me over with the Verizon network, the physical keyboard, and the ability for applications to do anything they want. It didn't.
Verizon's network is definitely better than AT&T's. I could see where this alone could convert folks from iPhone. We'll see whether AT&T's $2 billion network upgrade gets them closer to Verizon, but today they aren't even in the same league.
But, the physical keyboard has really underwhelmed me. Moto just did a bad job with the keyboard's ergonomics: it's hard for me to hit the keys along the top of the keyboard -- my fingers bounce off the display making me miss the key I'm trying to type and hit the key below it; and the keys are jammed together (or maybe not beveled enough?) -- making touch typing just not feel right. I ended up exclusively using the onscreen keyboard -- the physical keyboard did nothing but make the device larger and heavier.
Battery life is also poor -- perhaps even worse than iPhone's. Lastly, the usability of using the Droid is just inferior to the iPhone. I think this is largely due to the Android Operating System needing a lot faster processor and RAM than the iPhone OS -- more on this below.
Bottom line -- I won't be switching my primary phone from an iPhone to a Moto Droid.
Google (HTC) Nexus One
A few weeks ago I got my hands on Google's new Nexus One phone (built by HTC). I've been using it as my primary phone to see how it stacks up against the iPhone. Here I'm very close to giving up my iPhone -- it's a toss-up.
The positives:
The negatives:
So, what's stopping me from switching? Mainly it's due to there being more apps on iPhone, but the fit & finish of the operating system also plays a part -- more on the OS below.
RIM Blackberry
I haven't been using a Blackberry on a daily basis now for a few years, so my hands-on experience is a bit dated. To me, Blackberry is still the clear winner in the corporate email space, and the clear loser everywhere else. So, if all you want is a cell phone and a great device for doing email, Blackberry is for you. If you want a more full featured device, Blackberry just doesn't cut it.
Palm Pre
I haven't played enough with the Pre to have an opinion. They look nice, but so far have largely belly-flopped in the market. There doesn't seem to be very many apps available for Pre, and its sales have not met Palm's pre-launch hype. Anyone who uses one on a day to day basis, do chime in with your thoughts.
Android OS versus iPhone OS
This is the battle to watch in the mobile space over the coming 18 months. My belief is that 18 months from now, there will be more devices running Android than iPhone -- with Android taking the higher volume business, and Apple doing less volume, but retaining the higher end, higher margin business.
There are some big upsides for Android OS: I love that apps can run in the background (even if that does decrease battery life). This just opens up a lot of features you just cannot get on the iPhone. For example, my news reader downloads my RSS feeds in the background, so when I launch it, I don't have to wait for it to download all the new stories -- they are just there.
As a developer, I also like that Google doesn't get in the way of apps doing whatever they want on the device -- there is no draconian app approval process like on iPhone (the downside here being that apps on Android lack the professional feel of apps on iPhone).
Android OS is open source. As a developer, this again is a huge plus -- I can look and see exactly how everything works under the hood. In the end, these last two points I believe will win the hearts and minds of developers. Eroding Apple's big advantage in having the app lead.
Android uses Java for its development. Apple use Objective-C. There are a ton more Java developers in the world today, Java's easier to program, and there are a lot more third party libraries and software in the Java world than the Objective-C world. The downside with Java is that it's just not as fast on a CPU and memory taxed device like a mobile phone.
The biggest negative so far to me with Android OS is that it just doesn't have the fit & finish that iPhone OS has. Things just don't work as smoothly as they should -- for example if you want to scroll up or down through a list of contacts -- it's a smooth, satisfying experience on iPhone -- you can fling the list upward then pop your finger down on it and stop it where you want it and move your finger up and down slowly to control the list; but, on Android, the motion is jerky, and sometimes it just simply does the wrong thing -- it thinks you clicked on something you didn't -- or doesn't scroll when it should -- or won't stop when you want it to.
In the end, I think the plusses and minuses for Android OS versus iPhone OS cancel each other out today. In the long haul, I believe Android is going to be the winner as the microprocessors get faster in these mobile devices, the memory footprint gets bigger, and application developers are unleashed to be as creative as they want with a full understanding of what's under the hood.
InfoPogo is proud to announce that we just launched CarRentals.com's cool new iPhone app. Now you can rent a car from your iPhone and get CarRentals.com's killer deals on-the-go (a car for under $8/day in San Francisco -- wow!!).
It's fast and easy to use. You can see cars by price, vendor, or type:
